How Small Businesses Can Use Google Trends for Marketing & Strategy

As the world’s most popular search engine, Google has access to decades of information on what users are looking for online—and that information is accessible to anyone via the powerful, free tool Google Trends. 

Researchers have used Google Trends search data for everything from predicting the stock market to monitoring the spread of disease. For business owners, Google Trends offers businesses unique insights into consumer interests and search behavior, providing you a competitive edge in the market. 

Read on to learn how you can put Google Trends for business to work, supporting your business growth and marketing strategy in 2025 and beyond.

What is Google Trends?

Google Trends is a website that provides aggregated data about search queries, offering insights into the popularity of topics and terms over time and across different regions. Using a random sample of billions of daily searches, Google Trends measures the relative volume of search queries. This data stretches back to 2004, allowing you to analyze long-term shifts in interest.

Understanding relative search volume

Google Trends provides only relative search volume. That’s different from absolute search volume, which would be the total number of Google searches a term received. Understanding this distinction is crucial for interpreting the data and applying it effectively to your business decisions. 

Google Trends data is indexed to 100, meaning that the maximum search volume for a particular query over a set time frame is 100. If you look at trends over time, 100 is the day with the highest search traffic for your keyword. If you explore Google Trends by region, the location with the most search interest within a set time frame has a value of 100. A value of 50, for instance, indicates the term had half the search interest compared to the peak (100) for the chosen time and region.

Google Trends features

Google Trends offers several key features to help you explore search data and uncover valuable insights for your business. You can view interest over time, explore interest by region (down to the metro area in some countries), and discover related topics and related queries. You can also compare the popularity of multiple search terms simultaneously (up to 25 in five different groups) and refine your search by category and type of search (Web, Image, News, Google Shopping, YouTube). Understanding how to use these filters allows you to narrow down data relevant to your specific business needs.

Why Google Trends can help your business

In today’s competitive ecommerce landscape, understanding what your potential customers are searching for is fundamental to effective marketing and business planning. Google Trends for business provides a window into this customer behavior, offering data-driven insights that can inform critical business decisions. By analyzing trends, you can identify rising opportunities, understand seasonal demand in your niche, gauge regional interest, and even monitor the search performance related to your competitors. Leveraging Google Trends helps small businesses stay agile, connect with their target audience more effectively, and allocate marketing resources strategically. It’s a vital tool for staying relevant and competitive.

How to use Google Trends for business growth and marketing

As a business owner, using Google Trends goes beyond simply identifying fads. It’s a strategic tool that can significantly impact your keyword research, competitive analysis, marketing campaigns, and overall product strategy. 

Here’s how you can harness the power of Google Trends for business growth:

1. Plan ahead for seasonal marketing campaigns.
2. Find the best time to run ads and publish content.
3. Use regional insights for local targeting.
4. Identify valuable keywords and related queries.
5. Discover and capitalize on breakout trends.
6. Choose the right phrasing for your target audience.
7. Understand your competitors and benchmark your brand.
8. Optimize your marketing across different channels.
9. Monitor real-time trends with “Trending Now.”
10. Use Google Trends for content calendar planning.
11. Analyze brand awareness and sentiment.

Plan ahead for seasonal marketing campaigns

If you use Google Ads, you know that Google provides you with the monthly average search volume for search terms on the platform. The difference between Google Ads and Google Trends is that Trends provides real-time data rather than a monthly average, so you can use it to pinpoint searches around particular events or to see how searches change over time. These insights allow you to plan ahead for seasonal marketing campaigns that promote products during the times when searches for related product keywords spike. 

For example, by referencing the current data in Google Trends, you can see that search interest for terms like “hiking sandals” typically peaks in the summer months and dips in the winter. If hiking footwear is your ecommerce niche, you can capitalize on the precise timing of this pattern by increasing your ad spend and tailoring your product marketing messages in late spring and early summer. 

Find the best time to run ads and publish content

Beyond just seasonal spikes, you can use Google Trends to see if your search terms perform better on certain days of the week or even during certain times of day. For example, you might find that searches related to your products or services receive the most traffic on the weekend. 

This insight is valuable for figuring out the best times to schedule paid advertising campaigns and publish new content marketing. To ensure maximum visibility, it’s best to be most vocal when your target audience is most active. Using Google Trends to understand these micro-trends helps you optimize your publishing schedule to coincide with peak search interest, which helps drive higher audience engagement rates with your brand.

Use regional insights for local targeting

Google Trends allows you to drill down into search interest by location, offering valuable data for local businesses or those targeting specific geographic areas. You can get more specific with search volume data by selecting a location and narrowing your parameters. For example, instead of looking at worldwide trends, you could narrow down your Google Trends parameters to the US or a specific state. If you select California, for instance, you’ll see the search volume sorted by metro area within that state. 

By exploring regional interest in Google Trends for your specific product or service, you can identify areas with the highest concentration of searches. This information is invaluable for localizing your advertising efforts, tailoring content to regional interests, and understanding market variations. Localizing your strategy based on Google Trends data can help you connect more effectively with nearby customers. 

Consider that hiking sandals example: Say you find Google Trends data that shows a high search interest in hiking sandals in the San Diego area. In that case, you could publish a blog post on the top hiking trails near San Diego that includes product marketing for your hiking sandals. Valuable content like that can draw in the right local audience who’s looking for new outdoor adventures—while also getting them interested in the best new hiking sandals for their treks. 

Identify valuable keywords and related queries

Google Trends is a powerful companion tool for keyword research. When you use Google Trends to explore a search term, you can scroll down past the “Interest over time” and “Interest by subregion” data to two sections dedicated to related search topics and queries. This section is a goldmine for finding new keyword ideas and understanding the context of user searches. Toggle between “Rising” (highest increase in search frequency over a given period of time) and “Top” (highest overall search frequency) for a clearer picture of each term’s performance. 

By exploring the “Rising” and “Top” related terms for your core keywords within Google Trends, you can identify additional products, topics, or phrases your audience is searching for right now. These insights from Google Trends are useful for informing your business’s product development, content creation, and SEO strategy. For instance, if you sell hiking sandals, related topics might reveal interest in “water shoes” or “outdoor gear.” Those topics could inspire potential product line expansions or content themes for your brand.

Discover and capitalize on breakout trends

Rising related queries are usually listed with a percentage that indicates how the query’s Google search volume has grown when comparing two time periods. But if a query has grown by more than 5,000%, Google marks it as a “Breakout” trend, instead of showing the exact percentage of growth. Typically, in order to experience that much growth that rapidly, Breakout queries initially had a very low search volume. 

Identifying these breakout queries early can give your business a significant competitive advantage. Google Trends insights like these empower you to create the right SEO-driven content to capture your audience’s attention at the right time. Plus, if you’re among the first in your niche to spot a breakout search trend, it gives you the opportunity to address that search demand by launching relevant new products before your competitors catch on. 

Choose the right phrasing for your target audience

One handy feature of Google Trends is the ability to compare up to four different search terms at once. Once you’ve decided on a region and time period for your first search query, click “+ Compare” in the light blue box to the right of your original search term, and type in another query to see how these terms compare. This feature can help you choose the ideal phrasing for your search term. Using the Compare feature, you can evaluate the relative popularity of different terms or phrases your audience might use to search for your products or services. 

For example, you could compare “walking sandals” and “hiking sandals” to see which term has higher search interest overall or in specific regions. This feature can help you decide which keywords to prioritize in your marketing efforts and even how to adjust product descriptions or ad copy for different audiences based on their preferred terminology. Selecting the terminology your target audience actually uses improves the chances of them finding your business.

Understand your competitors and benchmark your brand

That term comparison tool is also helpful when conducting a competitive analysis. You can compare search interest for your brand name against your main competitors to understand your relative visibility and track changes over time. This feature can help you better understand your niche and improve your marketing efforts by seeing how your search popularity stacks up against others in your space. Monitoring competitor search interest can reveal shifts in the market or the effectiveness of their marketing initiatives.

Optimize your marketing across different channels

Google Trends gives ecommerce store owners the option to refine your search volume data by search channel. Web search is the default, but you can also see trends in image search, news search, Google Shopping search, and YouTube search. Understanding this channel-specific search behavior helps you optimize your content and product listings to match the specific search intent of users searching on each channel. 

For example, popular web searches for “walking sandals” might include the word “best,” which indicates those users’ search intent is to find product reviews or comparisons. Meanwhile, image and Google Shopping searches are more likely to contain terms like “for women” or other specific product attributes, which indicates users are looking for visual examples or products to purchase. With Google Trends insights like these, you can tailor your marketing efforts to those different search channels, helping drive more qualified traffic to your store.

Monitor real-time trends with Trending Now

The Trending Now section of Google Trends shows searches that are currently surging in popularity in a specific region. This data is updated frequently, providing a pulse on what’s capturing the public’s attention right now. Monitoring trending searches can help you identify timely opportunities for content creation, social media posts, or even temporary product promotions that tie into current events or popular culture. 

While not every trending topic will be relevant to your business, keeping an eye on this section can spark ideas for engaging with your audience in a timely manner and capitalizing on short-term interest spikes.

Use Google Trends for content calendar planning

Google Trends is an invaluable tool for planning your content marketing calendar. By analyzing historical search data, you can identify seasonal trends and predict when interest in certain topics or products will peak. This allows you to plan blog posts, guides, videos, and social media content in advance, ensuring your content is ready and discoverable when your audience is most interested. Looking at “Rising” and “Breakout” queries can also provide ideas for new topics to cover that are gaining traction, helping you stay ahead of the curve in your content strategy.

Analyze brand awareness and sentiment

Although it’s not explicitly a sentiment analysis tool, Google Trends can offer insights into brand awareness and potentially hint at audience sentiment. By tracking search volume for your brand name and analyzing the related queries, you can see what terms people are searching for in conjunction with your brand. 

An increase in search volume for your brand indicates growing awareness and potentially successful marketing efforts. The nature of related queries can sometimes provide clues about public perception (e.g., searches including “reviews,” “problems,” or “scam” versus searches including “best,” "discount," or "new collection"). Monitoring these related terms can help you understand how your brand is perceived, identify potential issues, or brainstorm opportunities for improving brand perception.

Integrating Google Trends with other marketing tools

For a more comprehensive view of your market and audience, consider integrating the insights you gain from Google Trends with data from other marketing tools. 

Combining Google Trends data on search interest with information other analytics tools can provide a richer understanding of your market landscape and the effectiveness of your strategies. 

You could cross-reference your Google Trends data with:

• Google Analytics data on website traffic and nuanced user behavior 
• Google Search Console data on the actual search queries driving traffic to your site
• Social media analytics tools data on audience demographics and engagement rates 
• Google Ads data on search history and queries that help with campaign planning 

For instance, you might find that high search interest in Google Trends for a term combined with low traffic to your site for that term in Search Console indicate a need to improve your SEO strategy for that keyword or create more targeted content. 

Getting started with Google Trends for business

Here are a few actionable tips for how to start using Google Trends for your business:

• Explore your core keywords. Enter the main terms related to your business, products, or services into the Google Trends Explore tool. Analyze the interest over time, regional popularity, and related queries to understand current search trends.
• Monitor your competitors. Use the compare feature to see how search interest for your brand compares to your main competitors. This helps you benchmark your visibility and identify competitive shifts.
• Check trending searches. Regularly visit the Trending Now section to spot potential timely opportunities for marketing campaigns or content creation based on current events.
• Plan for seasonality. If your business has seasonal fluctuations, use Google Trends to identify peak search times and plan your inventory and marketing accordingly to meet demand.

By making Google Trends a regular part of your marketing and market research routine, you can gain valuable insights to inform your decisions and drive business growth. 

💡For more in-depth information on using the tool, you can explore the Google Trends Help Center. For broader market insights, check out Think with Google.